I often wondered how the hell I was ever going to leave the club, knowing that the bed I had here was the most comfortable thing I’d ever slept on. It was soft and fluffy like a damn cloud, which Eagle had quickly noted that he hated with a passion, citing his love for sleeping on a hard surface.
He’d soon shut his mouth when I’d told him it was fine if he wanted to go sleep somewhere else, trying not to outwardly jump for joy when he’d just rolled over and pulled me into his arms, grumbling to himself until he drifted off to sleep.
I liked having him there.
I more than liked it, and it was seriously screwing with my head.
A sharp jolt woke me with a fright, and I almost tumbled off the side of the bed. I was still getting used to having someone else in my space at night since I’d spent the last few years with brothers coming in and walking straight back out afterward.
While most of them were sweet, there wasn’t many of them who had a cuddly side. And by not many, I meant Eagle was the only guy in the history of me being at the club who had spent the entire night in my bed. And it had happened more than once since we got back from Dallas last week.
Scrubbing at my eyes and fighting to adjust to the darkness, I looked over, my heart skipping a beat when I saw Eagle sitting straight up in bed, his chest heaving and his fingers clawing at his throat as if he was fighting for breath.
I put my hand on his back, and his body jumped like I had shocked him, so I quickly withdrew it again. “Eagle?” I tried, keeping my voice soft and calm. “Eagle, are you okay?”
He wouldn’t look at me as I crawled a little closer, trying to get in front of him. His eyes were open wide like he was scared, but they were glazed and staring straight ahead, not focusing on anything in particular.
I remembered the way he had reacted when I’d climbed on the bike behind him for the first time and wrapped my arms around his body. It was like the pressure of my body against him, had triggered an episode, one like this where his heart was racing, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe, even though there was nothing stopping him.
“Eagle, you need to breathe,” I told him slowly and sternly. “Inhale with me, come on.” I made a production about taking in a huge breath, my shoulders lifting dramatically as I showed how my lungs were filling.
The wheezing in his throat was lessening slightly, and I caught him blink a couple of times. So I kept at it, determined to help him fight back against the demons that drew on these memories inside his brain. It hurt me to see him so lost, but it also felt good to know that maybe I could do something to help or at least sit here and hold his hand until it passes.
“Inhale,” I told him again, doing the same thing as before.
I reached out and touched his hand. It was gripping the bedsheet so tightly that I knew I could never pry it out of his grip but trying whatever I could to soothe that overwhelming flow of emotions and memories that I’m sure were passing through his mind at that moment.
“Inhale,” I said one more time, and that seemed to be the kicker. His eyes suddenly focused on me and he gasped, much like someone would if they were sleeping and woken suddenly by a bad dream. “Breathe, inhale, and breathe,” I whispered soothingly.
I reached over and switched on the lamp beside the bed, it was dim and shone just enough light so we could see each other properly without striking us both blind. There was sweat glistening on Eagle’s forehead and chest, and his hair was a complete mess, sticking up all over the place. I continued to lazily rub the back of his hand as he focused on taking in air and becoming aware of where he was, that he was safe and he wasn’t suffocating.
“Fuck,” he cursed softly, throwing the blankets back and slipping out of bed, leaving me missing the warmth of his hand in mine. He went for a bottle of water which was on my desk and chugged it back. Even with the dim light, I noticed his hand was shaking before he slammed the water bottle down on the desk.
I wanted to let him have his moment, let him gather his head and process. It couldn’t be easy slipping into those kind of states where I could tell from the way he was acting, that they must have felt so goddamn real. I have plenty of memories, some of them horrific and while they made me feel ill to think about them, I can’t imagine having to relive those moments over and over again.
“I know asking if you’re okay is kind of a dumb question, but I really do want you to be okay.”
He huffed out a breath, it almost sounded like an attempt at a laugh before he moved back over to the bed and sat back against the headboard, looking up at the ceiling. “You know…” he started, his voice still a little raw, “… most of my brothers haven’t ever seen me have an episode.”
I turned my body to face him, tucking the sheet around me. “Way to make a girl feel special,” I teased, enjoying the way the corner of his mouth pulled up. “Can I ask?”
He squeezed his eyes shut before opening them, his gaze fixed on me. “Ask what?”
Licking my lips, I tried to make my mouth form the words, but at the last second, I chickened out and shook my head. “Never mind,” I told him with a gentle smile. It really was none of my business. I’d spent years letting brothers do their things, never asking personal questions unless it was something they had brought up. “We should get back to sleep, if you’re okay now?”
“Sky,” he growled, but I looked the other way reaching for the lamp. Eagle’s large hand grasped my wrist, holding me captive and not letting me turn away. “Just ask the damn question.”
I turned and looked at him from beneath my eyelashes, he already knew what I was going to ask, of course, he did, he wasn’t fucking stupid.But my mouth was suddenly dry at the realization that once we stepped into this, it could be the point of no return. Things were about to get really intimate, not in the sexual sense but in a sense he was letting me in to hear about a part of himself which he’d kept hidden from almost everyone.
“Why…” I cleared my throat, feeling it crackle with emotion. “Why do you feel like you can’t breathe?”
Eagle had quickly turned from a man who I knew nothing about, to someone who I felt like I could trust with anything, and who I wanted to fight for when he was feeling like the world around him was crumbling. He’d stood for me, no questions asked, no second-guessing.
We both wanted to protect and put ourselves in the way of the demons of the other’s past. I just had this overwhelming need to know his story, find out who he was and what happened to make him the person he was today. I wasn’t trying to fix him, or think that I would be the one to take the pain away. But his story was a part of him, and that made it essential.
It was a few seconds before his body actually relaxed against the headboard, and he started to explain.
“Leo and I served together. We were in the same unit for years, we all got deployed together, sent out together. There were times when we would have to sit around for hours out in the middle of nowhere waiting for pickups or drop-offs.” I listened intently, picking up the pillow from behind me and hugging it to my front. “I knew everything about every single one of those men and women. I knew their kids. I knew their birthdays. I knew what kind of food they hated. Fuck, I even knew what date the girls were due to get their periods.” He rolled his eyes, but I could see the corner of his mouth twitch as though that one memory, was at least a pleasant one. It didn’t last long though, a mask of devastation falling over him, his eyes staring at nothing.